Resident Evil: Voracious
by Voracious
Summary: It seems like the perfect chance to slough off the horror of months past -- a quiet vacation, high into the mountains in the remote village of Rhodes. But something is slumbering beneath the town's surface . . . and in the heart of man.
1. Prologue Things Set In Motion

Voracious - Prologue

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Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries.

Everett McKinley Dirksen

_August 15th, 1999_

There was no room in the company for people who couldn't keep up.

Far from the family oriented facade it presented to the public, Umbrella Corporation made sure from the outset that it's employees and even those they paid discreetly on the side would get little, if anything, in the form of lenience. Sloppy work ethics were punished as severely as was lateness, and, after the incident at the Arklay Research Facility the previous year, false alarms could yeild even more severe reprecussions than anything else, making those who had issued the alarms lucky if they merely lost their job or found themselves demoted to feeder. And it didn't help matters that the top executives had decided to treat almost every alarm as false, either; their security had become inordinately tight, enough that the higher ups had allowed themselves to breathe a sigh of relief, even as their more dangerous experiments hurled themselves in animalistic fury against the reinforced walls of their glass and steel prisons.

But whatever howls and noises kept the janitorial crew on their toes at night didn't bother the executives, who had begun to sleep soundly for the first time since the real disaster. They were content, positive, that things were under control. And as long as things were in control, they were unsinkable.

Them and the Titanic.

"And can you feel . . . this?"

There was a brief silence as Marshall LaChance gently edged the dial a notch higher. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their breath until the small figure on the static-ridden screen before them shook it's head. Several of the other men and women exchanged grins and clapped one another on their backs. LaChance himself held no such optimism, however; a higher tolerance had been encountered before, and they'd still needed a cleanup crew before the night was over.

He waited until the murmurs died down before he held down the button for the intercom again. "Are you ready?" At the nod, LaChance gave the dial a half-twist, one of the assistants beside him wincing sympathetically, clutching her clipboard against her chest. An electrical hum, until then barely perceptible, rose to an audible quality in the room, and even LaChance found himself raising his gaze apprehensively towards the ceiling as he leaned on the button again, asking, "Can you feel that?"

There was a longer pause this time, and LaChance winced inwardly. After a beat, however, the figure shook it's head once more, and Riddick didn't realise he'd been holding his breath until he heard it let out in a collective rush with the rest of the people, who had hunched closer around him before he'd noticed it. He looked at the numbers on the display with measured disbelief; if it was true, if it was working, and if it was working, he could say goodbye to worrying about making payments on his summer home.

This time, he accepted the firm handshakes offered by his colleagues, and didn't bother to suppress his grin. There were times in life when you simply had to stop worrying and accept your good fortune.

None of them could hear the high, plaintive keening noise issuing from the figure on the screen, small limbs stiff against the bonds.

And deep below them all, in the containment tank, _it _churned restlessly. Sitting nearby at a desk, the security guard eyed it apprehensively, wishing they'd put a curtain around it so he wouldn't have to look at it. Something about it made his brain hurt if he thought too long about it, and even when he forced his attentions entirely on one of the skin mags the other guards stashed about the facility to relax on breaks, he could somehow see it out of the corner of his vision, and he thought it was seeing him, too.

As if in response to some primal call, it roiled and shifted position once, furiously, so that he shot to his feet in alarm.

After a moment, however, it fell into stillness, and a kind of suspended dreamery.

Even after the guard was relieved of duty for the night, he slept restlessly.

Marshall LaChance slept dreamlessly.

----------

_August 16th, 1999_

By the time the dim outlines of buildings appeared on the horizon, Barry Burton was so tense he thought for sure he'd have to get the girls to help him pry his fingers off the steering wheel when they finally stopped. There were dozens of family vacations in the past, and not one of them had ever made him feel as though he was walking on glass like this one did.

Except, he thought, this isn't exactly your typical family outing, Burton. Maybe you should stop pretending it is.

A glance at Kathy beside him, her tense, drawn face averted and reflected in the windshield, let him know he was right.

"Nearly there now, girls," he said with false cheeriness, "about fifteen minutes, maybe, and I figure we'll all be peeling our shoes off in genuine rustic comfort. Sound good?"

Barry risked a glance in the rearview mirror. Only Poly Anne, out of the three of them, looked pleased. Kathy still wasn't speaking to him, and after the first leg of the trip, Moira had turned from her usual cheerful self to being cranky and troublesome. The girl was slouched in her seat now, arms folded across her shirt, frowning out the window. Both she and Poly Anne resembled Kathy to a startling degree, sharing the same blue-black hair, pointed nose, and strong cheekbones. Once, Barry had happily joked how pleased he was to have the three most beautiful women in the world under more than one roof; now, with two of them scowling because of him, it only made him feel like more of a hell.

Sorry girls, he thought miserably, I didn't have a whole lot of choice.

As if she knew what he was thinking, Kathy snorted slightly.

She had every right to be angry, Barry knew. Most couples faced rough patches in their marriages, but not many of them had to deal with death licking at their heels wherever they went. Immediately after the Spencer Estate disaster, when the paper had branded himself and the other S.T.A.R.S. liars and worse, Barry had sent Kathy and the girls to stay with her mother, hoping to keep them out of harm's way. He'd visited them as often as he could, and initially, despite the cirumstances, Kathy had kept a brave face, mostly for the sake of the girls.

But now, with their home, their entire city gone . . .

"What do you expect me to do, Barry?" Kathy had snapped at him that night. "I can't keep smiling! I can't just laugh and say, 'oh, well, it's only our lives, it's no problem! We can make new ones!' Is that what you want me to do? Because I'm sorry, Barry, but you married the wrong woman then."

He had never expected it to be this hard, this genuinely painful to convince her to take the girls on a trip with him. He didn't know what was worse; the anger she'd flared with that night, or the odd, speculative way she looked at him now, when she bothered to meet his eyes at all.

"I don't know about you guys," he said now, with false cheerfulness, "but I can't wait to have some pancakes tomorrow morning, and maybe some hotdogs tonight. Cooked outside on an open fire is the best way you can get them." He realised he was babbling, but pressed on grimly. "You girls haven't had a real hotdog til you've had one of these."

In the back, Poly Anne looked up. "Can we roast marshmallows?"

"If you eat marshmallows," Moira spoke up sourly, "you'll get so fat, you won't be able to fit into any of your clothes. We'll have to give them all away, and you'll just have to wear garbage bags and potatoe sacks."

"Nuh-uh," the younger girl replied, "marshmallows don't make you fat."

"Do so."

"Do not."

"Do so."

"Do not. They're light and fluffy." Poly Anne said this with a note of triumph, as though that closed the subject once and for all.

Moira opened her mouth to respond, and Kathy cut in sharply, "Moira, that's ENOUGH. I don't want to have to tell you again."

To Poly Anne, Barry said, "We can do whatever you like, baby."

For a brief instant, Kathy's eyes met his. Barry thought he saw something accusatory in them, and he quickly looked away, staring determinedly down the road, focusing on the shapes of buildings. I'm sorry, Kathy, he thought wearily, but this is the last chance for a while we'll get to spend some time together . . . and you'll be safer here.

Besides, he thought, hands tightening on the wheel, this isn't . . . my . . . fault!

----------

Daddy wasn't acting like his usual self.

He was almost completely quiet as they drove down the leaf-littered road, the muscles in the back of his neck hard and tense as wood. Mommy hadn't said anything either, instead sitting silently in the passenger's seat, her hands resting limply on her lap, occasionally clenching reflexively into the fabric of the skirt she wore.

Moira Burton looked back and forth between the heads of her parents from where she sat in the back seat, and wished someone would say something.

Beside her, Poly Anne seemed oblivious to it all, contendtedly scrawling in the colouring book she took with her everywhere these days. Her side of the seat was littered with bits of crayon wrapper, pencil shavings, and stickers; the twerp even had one shaped like a bumblebee stuck to her forehead. But then, Poly Anne was five, and you had to expect these things, though Moira, who was eight.

"What are you drawing?" Moira asked, bored.

Poly Anne looked up. There was a smudge of something blue across one cheek. "I'm drawing a picture of the forest for Gramma an' Grandpa." she announced, reaching for a purple crayon to colour in the leaves.

"Boy," Moira said, "that'll thrill the pants off 'em. A bunch of trees."

"They'll like it." said Poly Anne, who was a devout worshipper of Barney. "Gramma said, it's always specialest when you make something yourself."

"As long as she can tell what it is, you mean."

From the front seat, their mother said tiredly, "That's enough, Moira."

Poly Anne stuck out her tongue, and Moira sunk down slightly in her seat, scowling out the window. "Butthead." she muttered under her breath.

Outside, enormous trees rolled by the windows as they drove, looming out of the ground and fog. Earlier, when trying to start up a conversation, Moira had learned from her mother than they were called redwoods, and from what Moira could see, they seemed to make up all there was to the forest, except for a few scraggly bushes and thin, whippy looking trees. Moira decided she didn't care for it at all; she wanted the clean, manicured grass of the park outside their house back in Raccoon City, but she'd learned early on in this impromptu trip that even mentioning their house seemed to set things off.

She'd been thrilled when Daddy had showed up on Grandma and Grandpa's doorstep the other night, flying off of her seat at the kitchen table to launch herself into his arms, followed close behind by Poly Anne, and thrown her small arms around his neck. Daddy had been crying a little when he'd kissed them both on their cheeks, the hairs of his beard rough and crinkly against their skin, and that, combined with how pale and tired he'd looked, and alarmed Moira a little; they'd been to Grandma and Grandpa's hose LOTS of times before, even longer than this, and even though he'd always been happy to see them when they'd gotten home, he'd never cried before.

Footsteps behind them had made Moira turn. Seeing her mother standing in the hallway, she'd happily called, "Mommy, look!"

Instead of running over to them, however, instead of smiling, instead of even blowing a kiss as she usually did when she saw their father across the room, Mommy had only stood there, arms folded so her hands could cup her elbows, looking at them thoughtfully. Daddy had stood up, taken a step towards her. "Kathy . . . we need to talk."

Later that night, lying beside Poly Anne in bed, Moira had tired to block out the angry voices from the room her parents were using down the hallway. Well . . . angry voice, anyway; that one was Mommy's. Daddy sounded . . . sounded tired. It was the only word Moira could think of to describe it. And in the morning, when he'd announced that they were all going away together for a while on a trip to the mountains, neither he nor Mommy had been smiling.

At first, Moira had been ecstatic about the trip. She and Poly Anne hadn't ever gone farther than their grandparents' house on holidays, and the prospect of staying in a real, live log cabin as Daddy had promised they would was exciting to them both. As the hours in the car wore on, however, and Mommy grew increasingly snappish, Moira found her own mood turning sour.

This wasn't a good trip at all, she decided, moodily studying the backs of her silent parents' heads. In fact, it was crap, which was a word she wasn't supposed to use, but which she thought perfectly summed up their situation.

"Total crap." Moira muttered, half hoping someone would hear her.

In the front seat, her father shifted positions, a restless creaking of the leather seat covers.

Her mother coughed quietly.

Somehow, Moira thought, it wasn't half as fun to be missing school when this was what you were missing it for. She settled back with a sigh and watched the trees go by, wishing for the billionth time she were anywhere but there.


	2. One

Resident Evil: Voracious - Chapter One

Author's Note: This is much better written than the prologue. Much better. The prologue needs another revision. Also, things intentionally proceed at a somewhat glacial pace (although I have the satisfaction of knowing how damned frantic and cruel things will become later), and I take liberties with Barry's somewhat nebulous-and-thus-pliable-backstory. Huzzah for creative liscence and story editing! Also, thanks to Shakahnna for the kind review. Here's hoping I give the Burtons the brief place in the sun they so rightly reserve. Yes, "Poly" is spelled intentionally like that -- I went with the spelling from the book.

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"There's a bear." Poly Anne announced, pointing with one hand out the window at the side of the road.

Kathy looked. "That's a badger, honey."

Moira sat forward. "I thought that was a badger." she said, pointing.

Dutifully, Kathy looked again. "That's a porcupine."

Barry snickered. "City kids." he said, not without affection.

Kathy met his gaze briefly, and at any other time, the eye contact would have sparked a smile on both their lips. Whatever Barry saw in her eyes now, however, made the tentative smile he'd begun to offer wither, and he quickly returned his attention to the road. She had every right to be angry; she _knew _she did. Nowhere in their vows had been included "international conspiracy" or "bilogical warfare" or "all family and friends are now forfeit".

Still, she felt just a little guilty at the twinge of savage pleasure she felt at the dull hurt in her husband's eyes.

In an effort to take her mind off the situation, Kathy shifted her attention to the buildings that were beginning to emerge from the landscape around them. She had to admit, the place didn't look like the overly expensive tourist trap she'd envisioned, nor the seemingly inevitable ramshakle, run-down counterpart. Instead, the brick architecture gave off a comforting feeling of solidarity, and the enveloping trees a sense of peace. It was as though no matter what changes the rest of the world found pressed upon them, this place would emerge the same, and wiser for the experience.

"Where are we staying?" Moira was twisting about in the back seat, looking at everything with a curiosity that seemed to have dispelled the sulky pall she had been under for the majority of the trip. "And are we gonna have to go to school?"

"No school." her father replied, turning them down onto what was clearly the main road into town. "No homework. No detention. I'm afraid you'll still have to wash behind your ears and brush your teeth though."

In the rearview mirror, Kathy met her young daughter's exasperated gaze and laughed suddenly, the sound surprising her as much as it did Barry. Moira, however, only looked oddly relieved.

Kathy and Barry had met young, and at the time she'd been interested in little more than her studies at the pokey community college she'd been taking classes at, forget about one fresh-faced young military recruit built like a barn in town on leave. Although Barry himself continued to deny it, his old friends took great delight in telling her the pains he had gone through to orchestrate every time he had 'accidentally' bumped into her off-campus, found a reason to stop by the cluttered stationary store she worked at after classes, or tried to nonchalantly inquire after her to her friends. While her girlfriends had thought she was playing hard to get, the truth of the matter was Kathy really had been all but oblivious to Barry's attentions until, tormented by teasing from his friends and the looming approach of a return to the base, he had asked her out directly.

Months later, when he'd come back for the final time, and she found herself laying curled against his side in the grass one evening in the yard behind the library, he'd cupped the back of her head in one strong hand and murmured, "I knew the moment I laid eyes on you."

Not usually one for romance, Kathy had found herself replying with complete sincerity, "I knew the minute you opened mine."

It was a story that never failed to bring half-envious, half-appreciative laughter from her friends, and Kathy had always been a little embarassed to find the undeniably goofy grin taking up stubborn residence on her face when it was told. She was not a woman given easily to laughter or more than slight smiles, and the day she realised she thought less of monetary concerns and the state of the world than she did the man in her life had literally caused her several moments of stunned pause.

Thinking of it all now, Kathy grimaced inwardly. Bad enough the man's surprisingly emphatic eyes were pleading with her whenever she looked his way, now she had her own mind pleading his case, too.

And she _did _understand.

Understood, but didn't accept.

The move from her hometown to Raccoon City when Barry had first accepted his position with the S.T.A.R.S. had been bad enough. Moira had just been a baby, and Kathy had been more than a little wary about the world beyond the cornfields and rivers she knew, nevermind leaving behind the friends and family she had always known. For the first six months or so in their new home, sleep had been slow in coming for her and often restless, leaving her feeling oddly displaced, until she finally began to accept the place as her own.

But at least that had been voluntary.

"Nearly there." Barry announced, large fingers beating a nervous tattoo on the steering wheel, a habit he'd never had before the Spencer Estate incident.

_If you want to blame someone_, an insinuating voice inside Kathy's head said venomously, _how about the man he told you forced them all into it?_

_I never liked him._ Kathy thought, and realised with only the mildest flicker of surprise that not only was the statement true, but for the first time in her life she was experiencing a hate so acidic she was a little frightened at the intensity of it.

Albert Wesker, the new captain, had made an appearance at the Burton household some weeks after his appointment to the position. All the S.T.A.R.S. had, and Kathy never minded; in their own way, Chris Redfield, Enrico Marini, Forest Spyer and the others were as much part of her family as Moira or Poly Anne. Wesker shouldn't have been any different; she'd met Raccoon's police chief Brian Irons before, and the knowledge that Barry was now under the management of someone as capable and cooly professional as Wesker should have been a relief.

Instead, when Barry had invited the man to dinner, Kathy had found herself disliking the man on sight.

It was difficult to say why, exactly. Now, of course, she had a reason, but back then, she'd never had cause to suspect a thing. Albert Wesker, with his good looks, somehow stylish military haircut, and smooth manners had been every bit the gracious guest, complimenting the lasagne she'd served, and even patiently answering Moira's endless parade of questions throughout dinner. If his smiles had been few and slow in coming, Kathy should have thought nothing of it; the man was in a new town as she herself had been, with people he barely knew.

It gave her a chill now to think that the man who had shaken the hands of herself and her daughters with such gravity and manners had been the same one who had threatened their lives and nearly ended that of her husband's.

But even hating Wesker, easy as it was, brought her little satisfaction. By Barry's own admission, the traitor was dead, his remains surely little more than charred ruin and ash amidst the now picked-clean site of the Spencer Estate. There would be no easy answers as to why it had happened, no closure, no face to yell at . . .

. . . except her husband's.

That twinge of guilt again.

The car glided to a stop, and Kathy looked around curiously. All along the wide, paved road were old-fashioned buildings built by hand and sweat long ago by the area's first settlers, and likely still home to their descendents, albeit a few coffee shops added into the mix. On a nearby porch, a mournful looking basset hound raised it's head off it's paws and regarded her gravely through the window before settling back down. A hand-painted sign propped in the window above the animal read 'Barb's Lunchbox'.

"Thought we'd get some grub before heading up." Barry explained, and the girls cheered loudly from the backseat. "And some directions." he added conspirationally to Kathy in a low whisper with a bashful grin, eyebrows raising comically.

She stared at him for a beat before she leaned forward and hugged him suddenly, fiercely. The strap of her seatbelt dug painfully into her breasts, but she ignored it, feeling instead the reassuring strength of his broad shoulders, the familiar bristle of his beard against her cheek. She felt his surprise, but he hugged her back readily with something like relief.

She might have forgotten things for the duration of the trip, allowed herself to fall blissfully ignorant, if her hands hadn't felt the familiar shape of his shoulder holster, and the magnum inside a dead weight.

Kathy pulled back suddenly, and knew he knew what she'd felt. Their eyes met, but this time she didn't allow herself to look away. The embrace had done some good, thawed the ice at least a little, and opened the door a crack. She kissed him once, impulsively. Things would be allright.

They _had _to be.

"Gross." Moira commented from behind them.

----------

"I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation."

Tall, spindly, and rumpled, Eddie Riddick knew he was something of a joke to the other researchers. It didn't matter how brilliant he was, or how many reports he turned in; he would always be remembered for his mismatched socks, his paranoia, and the lunch stains on the faded lapels of his lab coat. He refused to allow himself to be cowed this time, however; he stood tall (if, admittedly, a little shakily) in front of the enormous glass topped steel desk, in the direct center of the stylized red and white umbrella painted on the marble floor, and glared across it. "None of you do." he insisted.

"I think you're overreacting, is all, Eddie. We all do." Smiling, John Mayhew gazed impassively across his desk at the older man. "I mean, it's just a handful of people. Most of them are country bumpkins, Ed. Hell, I should know . . . I was one of them, once, wasn't I?" He grinned.

Riddick refused to be taken in by the executive's smiling, good old boy appearance. Mayhew hadn't gotten where he was by being a rube, and those who mistook him for one often became just one more step in the ladder he was climbing, waiting to be trod upon. "You don't understand . . . these people, they could ruin us all."

Mayhew grinned again. _Aw, shucks, fellas_, it said. He looked out of place in his cold office, a thick necked, sandy haired man with sleepy blue eyes and a smattering of faded freckles on his broad face. He looked, in fact, like a farmhand who had awoken to discover he had been reincarnated as a businessman and still couldn't get out of the old habits in his smart, impeccably tailored blue suit. "What're they gonna do, Ed? The facility's hidden, isn't it? And," he went on, laying a finger aside his nose, "they don't have the access codes, now, do they?"

"That's what you don't understand." Riddick said quietly.

Mayhew became very still.

He didn't lose his smile, but something changed in his eyes, a subtle quality Riddick wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been watching for it. Like a pond frosting over with ice at the beginning of winter. "I don't think I follow you, old boy," he said slowly, hands flexing once on the glass surface, "and, you know, contrary to what might be popular belief, we aren't much of a joking type of people here."

Riddick took a deep breath. He knew it was his nerves, but the temperature in the room seemed to have dropped several degrees. "Something's happened."

After a long moment, Mayhew gestured for him to begin speaking.

Outside, the autumn chill pressed insistently onward.

----------

Back at his small apartment, finally dismissed for the day, Riddick hurriedly shrugged out of his labcoat even as he kicked the door shut behind him. The small place was excruciatingly tidy, in sharp contrast to his sloppy appearance, which made sense; the only real things the researcher owned were the clothes on his back.

Which made it easier for him to find what he was looking for.

He snatched the small cellular phone he had been given the week before off the table and punched a number into it with trembling fingers. His eyes never stopped roaming over the walls, windows, and doors as he did, rolling in their sockets like those of a frightened horse. The minute he heard a click on the other end, he said, breathlessly, "It's me.

"The bastards went for it."


	3. Two

Resident Evil: Voracious - Chapter Two

Although Raccoon had never been a terribly clogged industrial town like some of those he had visited in his youth or in his military days, Barry could _taste _the difference in the air the minute he stepped out of the car, rolling the large muscles in his shoulders, relieved at being out of the confined space after so long. The scent of earth was in the air, damp and heavy with some recent rain, as well as the distant smell of wood burning in an iron stove -- one Barry remembered from days of his youth spent at his uncle's cabin in the Arklay mountains.

Barry's own family was mostly gone now, he the only child from his parents, and his uncle dying celibate. It gave him a painful sort of twinge in his chest to think now that the only real family he had left aside from Kathy and the girls -- namely Kathy's own mother and father -- might have already begun to cast him out. With the rest of his extended -- _surviving _-- family, Chris, Jill, Rebecca, and David, off doing their own best to receuperate before they planned a course of action, contact kept to emergencies only for safety's sake, Barry felt almost as he had the first time he'd been given a solo mission his first year after joining S.T.A.R.S.

It hadn't been solo, really. The rest of the team had been outside, threaded invisible amidst the compound as he'd crept inside towards the hostage situation. Still, he'd felt incredibly isolated, trying his best to make certain he wasn't heard, listening to the tense breathing of his companions over the broadcast channel in the little earbud he wore, so alive but so far away. The few postcards he'd gotten so far had been brief and encouraging, but so _distant_. At least, Kathy's sudden display of affection in the car meant things were changing, and he wouldn't find himself so completely isolated.

At least, he hoped so.

A sudden pressure against his calf made him jump before he realised what it was. Looking down, he saw the dog he'd noticed as they'd driven up standing beside him. The rolls of flesh over the animal's eyes made it look perpetually mournful, but it wagged it's tail once, twice under Barry's gaze before trotting away towards the nearby woods, sneezing loudly. Having already been unbuckled by Kathy, Poly Anne immediately eeled out of the back seat and looked after the dog with restrained ecstasy even as she clutched at her father's hand with both of hers. He knew both of the girls would have dearly loved a pet, and resolved to bring it up with Kathy sometime soon. Something warm and loving for them to hug at night after these last hectic, hateful months would be therapeutic for them all.

All thoughts of a new addition to the family, four-legged or otherwise, however, flew from Barry's mind the minute he held the door to the diner open for Kathy and the babies and the smell of grilling hamburgers hit his stomach like a sledgehammer. The interior was plainly decorated, with red and white checked tablecloths over massive hand-made wooden tables and the walls spottily decorated with framed pictures; some bad watercolours no doubt the work of some prized local artist, others what appeared to be black-and-white photographs of the town several decades before. Behind a half wall at the far end of the room, Barry could see a short, round woman with a massive bosom under a stained white cook's uniform sweating profusely over a large grill. This, he thought with relish, was the kind of place where even the salads came deep-fried, and the locals looked at you strangely if you complained.

"You're cheatin'." said a tall, painfully thin old man sitting across from a man so emaciated it was a wonder parts of him hadn't yet begun to fall off. The old-timer's expression was sullen, and Barry saw a pack of playing cards spread out between them on the table.

"The fuck I am." said the man's companion indignantly. His voice was high and reedy, and his Adam's apple bobbed dizzingly fast in his throat as he spoke. "You just ain't got the luck the Good Lord gave a blind, deaf whore."

"The fuck I don't!" shot back the first. "And I ain't payin'. I'm tellin' Lucy you bin down here takin' honest folk for fools."

"You do and I'll shove your head so far up your arse and you'll shit your dentures!"

Judging from the inattention of the diner's other sparse customers, this argument was an old one, and the only mind Barry paid it was to shrug slightly an give Kathy a what're-you-gonna-do grin when she frowned disapprovingly at the profanity.

If she thought the kids would be wounded by it, she was disappointed. Poly Anne and Moira had already begun straining at their parents' hands, eyes fixed on the drawings of ice cream and french fries on the chalk board nailed behind the counter. Barry couldn't blame them; for the past several days, they'd only eaten the pre-packaged sandwiches Kathy had made before they'd left, and he was willing to induldge them with any sort of real food, even if it meant stomach aches that night.

Leaving behind the two old men to squabble over their cards, Barry and Kathy sat the girls at a table near the counter, taking advantage of several old booster seats stacked haphazardly nearby. They'd barely kissed rump to chair when the waitress appeared, a middle-aged woman with dark hollows under her eyes and limp hair but a warm smile. "How you kids doin'?"

"Glad to be off the road." Barry replied. Then, out of courtesy, "How're you doing yourself, ma'am?"

"Ain't no ma'am." the woman replied, tapping the nametag clipped to her paisely blouse with a pencil. Margaret, it said. "Could complain, but won't. Don't expect hearin' about my sore feet'd be better'n a milkshake though, huh, darlin'?" This last was directed to Moira, who nodded violently. Margaret laughed. "Thought so. What can I getcha?"

Barry expected a long wait while their order -- enough grilled meat to terrify a large sized cow -- was prepared, but in no time at all the surface of the table was buried under ketchup-stained napkins and Kathy was wincing at the strawberry-flavoured moustaches the kids were left with around their mouths from dessert. While Poly Anne and Moira systematically eliminated the rest of Barry's french fries when he pushed his plate away, Kathy bought a newspaper at the counter, and pulled her chair closer to his so they could read it together. "Look," she said with amusement, "they had a pie bake-off last week. I didn't know they still had those."

"I'm still getting over the disappointment that nobody in the staff column is named Bobby-Joe or Debbie-Jean." Barry replied, and Kathy snorted laughter into a cupped hand, casting an embarassed eye over the rest of the diner to make sure nobody had been offended. The other customers had since left, and Margaret had gone over to the table governed over by the two old men, who were now bickering loudly over who should pay their check, each swearing up and down that they had paid it the last time. "Looks like a nice place though."

"How'd you find it again?" Kathy asked, paging through the paper, stopping for a minute to smile faintly at a picture on a page entitled 'Local Heroes' that showed several children Moira's age picking up trash in a park.

"Anderson." Barry said. "Said he came up here one year to ski."

"But he can barely walk and chew tobacco at the same time!"

"That's why he only came the one year." Barry replied. "Broke both his damn legs, but said the scenery was real pretty."

Whatever Kathy might have been about to say next died on her lips as she turned the page. Barry saw the slight widening of her dark eyes, the way she turned just a shade paler, before he lowed his own gaze to the article that had captured her attention.

**ANIMAL ATTACK FINALLY CLAIMS LIFE**

**by Lorie Buckett**

_After being attacked by a cougar two weeks ago while hiking on her own on Winston's Trail, 33 year old mother of one Anne Fanley passed away early this morning. Fanley suffered a near-fatal loss of blood when she was ambushed by the large cat fifteen minutes' walk from home and left for dead, and although she managed to hang on long enough for her mother to be flown in from Boston to say goodbye, Fanley died in her sleep from severe internal damages._

_Local sherriff William Harscht managed to track down and capture the animal two days after the attack occurred with several of his best men, but Fanley's family says they don't harbour any animosity. "It was just doing what came naturally. Instinct." says Fanley's husband, Harold, age 41. "You can't blame nature. Sure, we're angry. Nobody wanted to lose Annie. But maybe it was just her time to go."_

_The cougar has since been relocated to an animal preserve several hundred miles from Rhodes, where officials say it will have no need to feel threatened. Fanley's family, however, has lost something precious forever, and they hope their loss will remind people to always be careful and be prepared no matter how safe they believe themselves to be. _

_The funeral service for Anne Grace Fanley is a family-only affair scheduled for later this week, but the services following will be public, and all will be welcomed to pay their respects to a fine woman who was a well-thought of member of the community._

"It's nothing." Barry said immediately, although he shifted position so neither of the girls could see the article. After all, the murders in Raccoon City had begun with what many had thought were animal attacks as well, but this was different. "Says here they already caught the animal."

"I know." Kathy said, but she closed the newspaper anyway, and shoved aside the remains of her hamburger she had been picking at.

"These things happen all the time." he pressed. "It would have been front-page news if it had been -- "

"I know." she repeated. She didn't raise her voice, but Barry detected her downward plunge in mood without it, and was dismayed by it. Reminders, it seemed, were everywhere.

Moira seemed oblivious. "Do we still get hotdogs and marshmallows tonight?" she asked, wiping her face vigorously with a handful of clean napkins from the dispenser.

"How can you think of more food after all that?" Barry asked, determined not to let his mood be pulled down with Kathy's. "You can't possibly have any more room in you."

"Not now." Poly Anne said. "But we're gonna go to the bathroom later and make room."

While Moira looked embarassed, squirming down in her seat, Kathy laughed, and Barry relaxed slightly. They paid their bill to Margaret at the till, and Barry saw that the two old men were still arguing in the corner. Following his glance, the waitress grinned and said, "Happens every week, like clockwork. They only order one root-beer float each whenever they come in, but nobody ever wants to pay for it. Both of 'em retired with more money than I'll ever make in a lifetime, but you'd think the four dollars was almost gonna break 'em the way they carry on."

"Brothers?" Barry wondered aloud, recalling Moira and Poly Anne's frequent arguments that he supposed would only get worse and louder as they got older.

"Friends. Just old and stubborn ones." Margaret laughed. She took the five dollar tip Barry gave her without false protest. "Why, thank you. Will we be seein' you fine folks in here again, or are you just passin' through?"

"I don't know how much sugar we'll let the kids inhale, but we're here for a few months at least. We rented one of the cabins on the east side of town."

Margaret's pale brows rose. "Oh? Good choice. My uncle owns those. Tell him Margaret sent you. Cheap bugger won't take a penny off your cost, mind, but he don't come around here for me to say hello otherwise."

Despite the discovery in the newspaper at the diner, with their stomachs satisfyingly full of food, the ride through town was much more buoyant than had been the days-long drive into it. Twisting around in their seats, Moira and Poly Anne showed more curiosity about their surroundings than they had before, even if they did reserve the heights of their enthusiasm for the specialty candy shops and the town's single shopping mall. Although the town had to be at the very least half the size Raccoon had been, the sheer amount of greenery made it seem smaller than it really was, and when Barry turned a corner at the end of the street, all that was visible of the shops behind them was a thin stream of pale smoke rising from someone's chimney like a fond farewell above the tops of the pines.

The cabins Anderson had suggested were ideal. From pictures and phone calls, Barry had learned they were in an excellent location, close to a small playground for the girls, and the office housing a small convenience store. And, though Barry hadn't told Kathy, they looked to be easily defendable, if something were to happen. Something like . . .

. . . well, something.

The two months they'd prepaid for had been a large hit to the family's savings. Ever since they had gotten married, Barry and Kathy had made a point of setting aside a little from every paycheck into a savings account, subconsciously spurred on by the dire warnings in the media about having a little set aside for a "rainy day". Often, it had been little more than sacrificing the amount they might have spent to rent a few videos at the end of the week, but as the family had gotten it's feet steady underneath it, the deposits had gotten steadily larger. When Barry had first dared to look at it when the first plans for escape had begun to form in his mind, shortly after the Spencer Estate incident, he'd been stunned by just how much they'd managed to ferrett away without even realising it. Now, knowing that they'd be allright for a while, Barry was even more glad he'd insisted that Kathy withdraw all the money in the account when he'd sent her and the babies away to stay with her parents.

Doubly glad when you considered the fact that shortly thereafter, the Raccoon City First National Bank had become little more than a pile of charred debris in the center of Umbrella's blast zone that had signalled the end of so many people.

"Oooohh." Poly Anne sighed suddenly from the back seat, pointing out the window. "Mommy, how come we can't stay _there_?"

Barry looked, and immediately laughed. The only way they could have afforded the security deposit on the place would have been to win several large national lotteries . . . or rob several large national banks. In the setting sun, the large cottage didn't seem to sit back against the forest so much as nestle against it, like a woman into the arms of her husband or a child against the breast of it's mother. Although the front of the building was crawling with vines, they were so lush and artfully arranged around the curtained windows Barry was certain there would never be any architectural damage from them, given the expertly cultivated lawn Barry would see stretching out beyond the chest-high brick wall that surrounded it, as though someone went over the grass daily with a pair of tweezers. He was willing to bet that it had at least twice as many rooms as the house they'd abandoned back in Raccoon, and probably served as some wealthy couple's winter retreat. Right now, with all the curtains drawn and no glimmer of light from within, the place looked as though it were sleeping.

As they rounded the curve in the road and the cottage retreated from view, Poly Anne slumped back into her seat. "When I get rich," she said, "I'm buying Daddy and Mommy and us a house like that."

Although she too had twisted in her seat to watch the house go by, Moira scoffed. "Yeah, right. What're you gonna get rich on? The only thing you've got a lot of is snot."

Managing to look both offended and intrigued, Poly Anne said with perfect conviction, "It could happen."

"Fuck you! _FUCK YOU!_"

Even though Bill had turned the light off in the living room, Ina continued to scream at the door, shivering with both chill and rage in the evening air. She knew he was in there. Probably dialing that bitch right now so they could have a good laugh over her. Just the thought of that smug-faced whore made Ina want to scream again. "I hope you're both very goddamn happy with each other!"

The curtain in the kitchen window twitched, and Ina flipped it off, not even bothering to try to calm down. She was not known around town for her spectacularily cool head, after all, and when news of the incident, that _Ina Watt _had been dumped by Bill Meyers for scuzzy _Marjorie Thomas _of all people, spread throughout town, most people would probably agree that Bill had been lucky she hadn't been in possession of a tire iron for his head, or a brick for his windows, even if they secretly thought he was wise to have finally cut her loose anyway.

"Think you're so goddamn hot!" she screamed, kicking the door and leaving a small dent with her pointed heel. "You wait until I tell my fucking brother you been screwing around on me! YOU'RE GONNA BE DEAD, BILL!"

"Go home, Ina." The voice on the other side of the door was muffled, but still sounded tired and wan. "It's over. Just go home, okay?"

"Worm!" Ina shrieked, her voice now approaching such a level it made her own ears ache along with her throat. "Maggot! Fucking _coward_! She ain't half the woman I am, and you know it!"

"Ina, please go home. I think when you cool off you'll realise this is all for the better. We really . . . weren't right for each other anyway. Please go before I have to call Sherriff Harscht."

"Asshole!" Ina spat, but she turned and began making her way down the uneven pathway anyway. The last thing she needed was another run-in with the police, especially when she had to work tomorrow.

The sun had mostly sunk below the horizon now, and the streets looked empty as she reached the sidewalk. She didn't feel like going home right now even though she'd nowhere else to go. The truth was, even with her anger still smouldering in her gut, she felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes, and she covered it by hunting in her purse for her mascara, just in case a car should drive by and see her. Hers was a frightening legacy in town for all of her nineteen years, built by her practiced sneer, backstabbing, and even an all-out fight now and again, and she didn't need people knowing that the feared Ina Watt was crying because her boyfriend had cut her loose in favour of a girl who didn't go out every night to party and wasn't prone to roller-derby fits of rage.

It wasn't that she'd particularily liked Bill all that much, she thought as she began walking down the street towards the heart of the town. He'd been a decent guy, sure, and had been able to make her laugh, but she couldn't have seen herself spending the rest of her life with him. It was that he'd been probably her longest relationship to date, and for him to just get rid of her like that after almost six months stung.

_Tell my brother, sure. Anthony'll just laugh. Say I deserved it._

Ina sniffed and looked around. She wished she'd chosen pants to wear tonight instead of the short skirt she had on, but how was she to have possibly known she'd been headed for singlehood instead of the makeout session she'd imagined when Bill had asked to see her? Rhodes's auntumns might have been amazingly warm on most days, but at night, this close to the mountains, it was nothing short of freezing. She began to walk faster, long legs eating up distance, trying to pump some warmth back into them.

At night, even with the pools of light from streetlamps, Rhodes was a dark town. There were few, if any, windows ablaze in any of the small shops that lined the streets, and only rarely was light spilled from the headlights of a passing motorist. Still, Ina wasn't afraid. She had travelled over every alleyway and sidestreet of this town since she had been seven, made it hers with angry footfalls, and to her, the darkness was comforting, a cool balm against her anger.

She had reached the end of main street, a good ten minutes' walk from Bill's, before she realised she was being followed.

It wasn't that she could see anything behind her, nor was it anything overly obvious, but the signs were there, and Ina's survival instincts were well-honed for her age. Little things. Like what she had taken to be the echo of her heels off of the sidewalk was in reality someone else's own footsteps stopping a bare second later whenever she paused. Like the way the air had changed quality slightly, displaced by something else, by that weighty feeling of being watched.

"I ain't in the mood." Ina said loudly, still walking briskly towards the unlighted street home. "Fuck off."

Dangerous? Not a chance. There had never been a rape or murder reported in town as far as she knew. Probably just some high school kids trying to give her a scare, or even one of her many admirers. One of the men who left a larger than usual tip when she served them at the diner, tried to catch her eye as she was leaving. Even if it had been someone who meant her harm, they'd learn Ina Watt was far from helpless. She hardly had any formal martial arts training, but in her experience a good knee to the groin and a thumb in the eye would discourage just about anyone.

She turned the corner and heard a soft skittering sound off to her left. Had the creep cut off? When she stopped, she heard a single footstep behind her. No. Someone else, then. Sweat kissed the nape of her neck, and she cursed herself softly. _Get a grip, Ina. Ever heard of garbage in the wind? Stray animals?_

Someone cleared their throat behind her.

Ina spun around, hands balled into tight fists, her purse hitting the ground. The sound had been extremely close, but she couldn't see anyone behind her, and there were no alleys here to hide in. Angry now that she was so edgy, and angrier still when it was fanned by the flames of her still hot fury towards Bill, Ina shouted, "You leave me alone and I'll leave you a testicle, asshole! Getting your wanks outta following some girl on her way home! You make me sick!"

One of the shadows clinging to the wall of the building she stood next to seemed to flex itself.

Ina's stomach gave an odd lurch, and she hopped back before she could stop herself, heart doing double-time somewhere in the vicinity of her throat. "Jesus." she breathed. "And people say I have no imagination."

Turning her back now, Ina broke into a trot. She was roughly five minutes from her house and the safety of her living room. She'd always admired how shapely these heels made her calves look, but they were hardly suited for running a marathon, and it wasn't long before every step sent a small but noticeable spike of pain up her heel. If the footsteps behind her sped up to match her pace, she couldn't hear it over her own harsh breathing.

Ahead of her, in the gloom, something flexed.

With a shrill cry, all pretense of toughness dropped, Ina broke for the other side of the street, and this time she definitely heard the clatter of footsteps pick up behind her. Was it possible for something as simple as a footstep to sound excited? Her own sounded desperate to her.

The familiar shape of the faded white fence that surrounded her family's property finally came into view, each picket like a dingy ghost, and Ina gasped with relief. Once she was inside, she was going to pour herself a hefty glass of whiskey and not breathe a word of this to anyone. Even if it was just her imagination acting up or some harmless bum, Ina had never before been so frightened. Not even the time her mother had gotten drunk and had chased both she and Anthony into the woods for three hours with a hammer when Ina had been six compared. Irrational, maybe, but true.

Reaching the fence, Ina swung herself through the broken gate and bolted up the path. She hit the door with her shoulder and grabbed at the doorknob. The feel of the cold metal was reassuring in her palm, but the sensation didn't last when it resisted when she tried to turn it. _Locked_. Who locked their doors in this town anymore, least of all her own brother? Remembering her purse on the sidewalk, Ina hit the door with her fist. "Anthony," she called, keeping her voice level, "open up. It's Ina. I lost my keys. Okay? Okay? Anthony? Are you there?"

She cast another look over her shoulder, and a frightened whine broke out of her throat. The shadows seemed to be converging on her, moving up the walk like a living thing. One trick of her eyes was fine, but this many was too many to dismiss. "_Anthony!_" she cried, hitting the door again with her shoulder although she knew she had no chance of breaking it down even fuelled by fear.

Ina Watt, terror of high school girls and grown men for over a decade, opened her mouth to call out again when something thick and wet flapped over her mouth. A second later, she forgot everything in a burst of freezing agony that seemed to blossom from her belly like some terrible flower.

It was less than five minutes later when Anthony Watt opened the door, still buckling his jeans. "Ina?" he called wearily. She'd sounded absolutely freaked, strung out; Ina wasn't much for drugs, but she was one hell of a drinker, and it wouldn't have been the first time she'd come home screaming about something. By now, at seventeen, he was more than used to his sister's wild moods, and bore them without so much as batting an eye.

Tonight, however, the small yard in front of the house was empty.

Frowning, he leaned out over the front step and called again, "Ina?"

There was a soft step on the stairs behind him in the entryway, and he heard Allison sleepily call, "Anthony?"

More confused than worried, Anthony gave the yard one final cursory glance before he shut the door, remembering to lock it again. Ordinarily he wouldn't have bothered, but it made Allison uneasy to think of someone able to just walk in. She was a sweet girl, kind and quiet, but a little nervous. In any case, if Ina came back -- if it _had _been her and not just someone fooling around -- she'd hopefully have sobered up enough to remember the spare key kept above the doorjamb.

After all, it was just like Ina to lose her head over something like that.


	4. Three

Resident Evil - Voracious

Chapter Three

Author's Note: A huge thank you to both deepgirl and Shade1578 for the encouragement. If my ego gets too big so as not to allow my head to fit through most standard household doors, I'm sending you guys the grease bill.

LaChance wasn't ordinarily a bitter man.

When his first wife had divorced him, leaving him for his brother and taking with her every plate, bowl, cup and piece of china in the house, he hadn't sought revenge. He'd just bought paper plates.

When, several years back, his lab assistant had pulled a practical joke in particularily poor taste that had nearly cost LaChance his promotion, he hadn't bothered to fire the fellow, instead recommending him for a retraining seminar being held that weekend.

Even when he'd gotten word last year that his mother's newest boyfriend had broken her arm in several places, LaChance hadn't lost his temper, being in remarkably cheerful spirits when he'd signed the hefty check that would secure the abusive fucker's hospitalisation.

Marshall LaChance was a strong believer in not worrying about things you couldn't change. You couldn't monitor someone else's behaviour, you could only watch your own. People were loose cannons, something he'd learned early on in life, and all you could do was stand back from the blast range and keep your eyes on your own work.

In hindsight, he had probably been due for a blow up.

He stood off to one side in the sterile corridor and watched as stony-faced maintenance men carted out the remains of his desk and bookshelf from his quarters, plucking absently at the sleeves of his jacket. Linda Devine, on her way back from her shift, paused outside her door and watched with interest, a stack of files balanced on one ample hip, and a large, agressively pink coffee mug in her other hand. "Bad day, Dr LaChance?" she asked sympathetically.

LaChance didn't buy it for an instant. The only reason Devine would pat him on the back would be to find the best place to sink a meat cleaver. She was exactly the sort of person that seemed to becoming more and more prevalent in Umbrella's ranks these days. "I've had worse."

One man emerged from the room, carrying the torn remains of LaChance's mattress. Slashing that had been particularily therapeutic.

"I heard they want to cut the Doppleganger Project." Devine went on, scratching at a mole on the underside of her chin. "Too bad."

Fuck. She knew.

Although he would have liked for all the world to snatch the mug from her hand and shove it down her throat, LaChance shrugged indifferently. "I'm taking it up with Mayhew tomorrow. We'll see."

Devine took a sip from her mug and regarded him solemnly over the rim of it. In the harsh lighting of the corridor, she looked even paler, like something you might have found growing on the underside of a rock in early springtime. "Maybe it's time you just let it go, Doctor. Maybe it's none of my business -- "

"Maybe it's not." LaChance agreed tightly, not looking at her.

" -- but I think you could be making a bigger splash in another pond." she went on as though she hadn't heard. "We've got an opening on my team you'd be perfect for. Cellular deconstruction. I think it'd even be a pay increase."

The sad truth was, it probably would be. For the past few months, LaChance had felt as though he was living under a constantly swelling ominous shadow, which represented to him the waning interest of the company in his work. It was like a kick in the balls, when it came right down to it, especially considering the lengths they'd gone to lure him away from his medical practice when they'd first gotten wind of his ideas. To have such support, such enthusiasm, yanked out from beneath you like a rug was one of the worst feelings he'd ever experienced. He blamed it partly on the Spencer Estate incident; ever since, the company had been wary, even downright hostile towards straying away from already established ideas and working concepts.

"We had a breakthrough just the other day." LaChance said, unable to keep the acid out of his tone. Irritated as much by Devine's presence as his own lack of self control, he smoothed his short, dark hair with one hand. "They just need to see the figures."

"The first one was a failure."

"The first one was a tragedy!" he snapped. The maintenance men were carting in replacement furniture now, and his outburst earned him a long, contemplative look from them, as though they were fit to judge him. "We've made incredible leaps since then. Even that was a huge step forward."

"Sure. Sure, yeah, I know the feeling." Devine said. She smiled unpleasantly. "Well, you just think about it, anyway. Let me know if you need any help."

LaChance didn't bother to watch her go. There was nothing to think about. In the long run, his work was going to save lives, completely revolutionise the world. He had to believe that.

Even if it was wrong, he couldn't let what had happened last time happen again. Not to Simon.

The following morning, Barry dropped her off along mainstreet outside of a small market, and Kathy Burton found herself spectacularily unburdened by children for the first day in months.

Not that she didn't love her girls. Moira and Poly Anne were Kathy's treasures, in every sense of the word, and seeing them grow more and more independant each day was like a knife of sad love in her back, twisting between her shoulderblades. Sometimes, she would watch them play or argue, and her heart would be so heavy with love for them and dread for the day they finally left home that she thought the weight of it would drag her to the ground, although she never said it aloud.

But with Barry taking them off to the local mall and left to her own devices finally, Kathy felt a little like kicking up her heels. It had been so long, so many days spent in numbness and worry, laying awake at night and wondering what, if anything, she could do if Umbrella were to break in the house while she was alone with the girls and Barry was gone that she had almost forgotten there was an entire world out there outside of anger, pain, fear, worry. Of course, Barry would be back in just over an hour for her, and all she was really doing was picking up some groceries to stock up the empty fridge inside the cabin they were occupying, but she felt ridiculously free regardless.

Their first night in the new place had been a peaceful one, and surprisingly so. The girls had been too wrapped up in choosing their room from the two the place boasted to argue, and Kathy had been comforted enough by the atmosphere to forget her earlier worries. Although it was fairly large, the interior had been cozily decorated without looking like a trademark of Martha Stewart, fresh off of the factory line. While Barry had set about unpacking, Kathy had spent a while going from room to room, admiring the lived in feel, the sturdy handmade quality of the furniture, and the solidarity of the building itself. She'd caught herself wondering if the owner of the cabins would ever consider selling one. As much as she had been embarassed by her brief flight of fancy -- what, Barry cutting trees for a living, she canning pears while the children picked wildflowers? -- she had been a little relieved by it, too. She was remembering how to live, and she had slept soundly curled against Barry's back that night, with none of the jitters that a new place usually brought.

Rhodes too seemed as energised as she felt by her calm night. While at first she had thought the town had been quiet and lazy yesterday, today it seemed full to the seams with people and duty. The street was an irregular snake of cars and other vehicles, the sidewalks pockmarked with people who seemed friendly enough to pass her a smile as they went by on their own business. When Kathy pushed her way into the market, she found it busy as well. A young mother, blonde ponytail bouncing smartly between her shoulders, jogged past Kathy pushing a shopping cart with a chubby infant in the seat eating a chocolate bar. The child grinned up at Kathy, and she smiled back, netting a communicative glance from the woman and a slight smile.

Kathy got a cart of her own and joined the others browsing the aisles. It was such a normal, mundane, every-day-mom activity that she had to smile again. She knew how little she had smiled lately, and thought it was wasted upon the strangers in this store (heck, she probably looked like a loon, grinning at jars of peanut butter), resolved to spend more on Barry instead. She was still angry at him, at a lot of things, but that didn't mean she wasn't at least willing to open a door or two on the way to resolution.

" . . . didn't know she didn't come back last night." A voice floated over from the next aisle as Kathy stood checking dates on bread. "I mean, she was pretty pissed, but still. I thought she'd go straight home."

"Pretty pissed, _yeah_. First she gets her designs rejected, and now this." Another voice, another man's, and irritated.

"She heard back from them? I didn't know . . . "

"Probably didn't get the chance to tell you. You were too busy dumping her ass, weren't you?"

"Hey, Anthony, come on. You know what it was like. Cut me a break, I thought we were friends. Jesus."

"Okay, yeah. I'm sorry. I know you weren't happy. I'm just worried, is all."

"I know. But it's not just anybody. If it was anyone else, I'd be worried, but it's Ina. I'm not just saying that to be an asshole, you know I'd never wish anything bad to happen to her, but she can take care of herself. Probably went off to see Charmaine."

"Aw, shit. You're right. I didn't even think to call her and check . . . "

"'Scuse me."

This last had been spoked right next to her elbow, and Kathy jumped. She was aware of a heat in her cheeks, and was embarassed for having been caught listening. "I'm sorry. Am I in your way?"

The speaker had been a stooped, pale old man, and Kathy recognised him as one of the men she'd seen arguing at the diner yesterday. He was dressed, oddly enough, in what looked to be an honest to god smoking jacket made of red velvet, and wore a pair of faded brown slippers on his feet. "Naw." He had a voice like a door left ajar in the wind, but his expression was good natured enough. "Didn't mean to startle ya none. Just wanted ta ask, you and yer husband and yer kids, yer stayin' in town, aren't ya?"

Absurdly relieved she hadn't been caught eavesdropping on that little bit of small-town drama, Kathy managed a nod, dropping a loaf of bread atop the other items in her cart. "Yes. The Burtons. We're staying a while." She knew she sounded inane, but she couldn't help it. She had never been able to handle embarassment gracefully.

The old man's thin brows rose with interest. "That so?" He thrust out his hand. "Council Riddick. Nice to meetcha." he said, and bowed with surprising gravity.

Amused and charmed, Kathy shook his hand, introducing herself. She thought he might have been the one who had been accused of cheating; if so, he reminded her even more of her own father, who had been kicked out of many a poker game, than on appearance alone. He was solidly built for his age, his head topped with a thick mat of iron gray hair, back bowed with age. His nose, a pendulous thing, seemed to droop sadly under it's own weight. "Good to see people comin' into town who ain't some rich bitch yuppie trash -- pardon the language -- especially when we don't usually get nobody unless it's ski season."

"I'm afraid I'm not much of a skiier."

"Good." Council snorted. "Prancy fuckin' thing, call that a sport? Sorry, sorry. Keep forgettin' my language. I ain't used to talkin' to a lady, 'less you count Thomas."

"That's allright." Kathy said with amusement. With her eye on the clock mounted on the wall, she began easing herself in the direction of the checkout. She liked the old man, but she wanted to investigate some of the other stores along the street before Barry came back for her.

Council kept pace with her, standing right beside her as she waited for the bored looking young man at the till to ring her purchases up. He seemed to be glad to have someone to talk to, and she didn't mind humouring him. "How you like the town so far?"

"It's beautiful." Kathy said honestly. "So much nicer than the city."

"Mmm. We got a sayin' 'round here. 'All Rhodes lead to home.'" Council smiled wryly. "Sell a lotta novelty pillows and embroidery with that on it to the tourists. Speakin' of which, you wanna buy that tourist crap, buy it from Sheila Mason over on Wight Street, not that goddamn rip off souveneir store. You buy somethin' there, it'll fall to pieces before you can say 'Gypsy Bastard'."

"I'll keep that in mind." Kathy laughed.

"Ma'am?" the clerk prompted, drumming his fingers on the till.

"Excuse me." she said to Council, and, with an apologetic smile at the clerk, opened her purse. She instantly felt an unpleasant flip in the vicinity of her stomach; her wallet wasn't where it usually was, tucked in between her slim makeup bag and her address book. She unzipped the side compartment to find only a nearly empty pack of sugar free gum.

"Somethin' wrong?" Council asked.

"I . . . I, ah, can't find my . . . wallet." Kathy was blushing again. She knew exactly where it was; sitting on the kitchen counter next to the front door where she'd put it so she wouldn't forget it after paying for the pizza they'd ordered last night. The clerk let out an exasperated snort. "I left it at home. I mean, in the cabin. I-I'm sorry." Embarassed, she grabbed her cart and began to turn it away. "Don't worry, I'll put all this back."

"Don't be daft." Council grunted. Kathy saw with a sensation of horror that the old man had pulled a battered checkbook out of his own pocket.

"Oh, no, please, it's fine, I'll just come back later -- "

Ignoring her, Council began to write the check, tongue poking out between his lips in concentration, and Kathy thought she might die of shame. Having a stranger, much less an old man who probably lived from one pension check to another, pay for her groceries like she was some charity case? "I'll pay you right back." she stammered as he tore the check off and passed it across the counter. "You absolutely did not have to do that, Mr Riddick, I'm so sorry. If you'll just give me your address, I'll bring you the money over as soon as my husband picks me up -- "

Council regarded her with a gentle sort of amusement. Again, Kathy was reminded so powerfully of her father she found herself trailing off. Her father had often favoured her with the exact same look when she'd messed up or embarassed herself. "Tell you what." he said gently. "You and your kin come over this evenin' for supper, and we'll call it a wash." He was writing something down on the back of a blank check, what she thought was his address. When she opened her mouth to protest, he silenced her with a severe look. "Don't you go insultin' yer elders now. I ain't some senile old man, or some dirty old coot. I just could do with the company, and if we're gonna be neighbours, I 'spect we should be neighbourly."

Although the tone was harsh, the words were kind, and Kathy suddenly felt a lump in her throat as she took the address from him. She had forgotten the simple kindnesses of people, had maybe even begun to think they didn't exist. She knew a lot of good people, but running into one like this was virtually unheard of, like some sappy Lifetime channel made for tv movie. "Thank you." she managed, glad she had enough self control not to make a fool of herself and cry right there on the spot. These days, she found herself crying at the drop of a hat.

Council smiled and shrugged the thanks off. "Come by at six. Normally, I eat later, but I 'spect yer kids'll be starvin' by then. Dress casual."

It wasn't until he had gone that Kathy glanced at the address he had scrawled down. She didn't know her way around town at all yet, but something about this tugged at her memory, and when she realised what it was, she felt her jaw drop.


	5. Four

Resident Evil - Voracious

Chapter Four

Charmaine DuChamp lived on the outskirts of town, and was as unlikeable as her name. Thirty years old but possessing the mind of an adolescent, the woman with the perpetual leer and low-cut shirts exposing the tops of her usually bruised breasts was the unlikely owner of a prime piece of real estate. Parking at the curb, Anthony Watt paused a moment before getting out to admire the view, as well as to delay the inevitable confrontation.

The DuChamps, that is, Charmaine's mother and father, at least before their deaths nearly a decade earlier, had been highly respected members of the town, running a profitable winery on their sizeable bit of land. When Anthony had been a child, the twelve acres had been painstakingly maintained, but at the same time had given off an air of wildness, aided by the enroaching forest, long shadows falling across the rolling grass even at the highest point of the day. He could remember yearly parties thrown at Halloween, where the adults would gather to gossip and the gardens would be converted into a massive outdoor haunted house, the children shrieking with delight at convincing ghosts hung up amidst the grape vines and trellises. He had always admired the sleek lines of the cozy four bedroom house as well, the interior filled with elegant mahogany and real hardwood floors never without a loving gleam.

These days, he cringed inwardly to think of the state of the disrepair Charmaine must have allowed the home to fall into. How could someone have so little care for their family's legacy?

Anthony climbed the winding path to the now battered front door as slowly as possible, already rehearsing possible conversations in his head. If Ina was there, she was likely to be about as cooperative as a wounded bear, her pride hurting from last night, and her head throbbing from any number of drinks. Charmaine was only too happy to play hostess to the younger woman, living vicariously through her, and frequently fanning the flames of Ina's already considerable temper whenever she sensed a show might be in the works. Anthony thought Bill was lucky Ina hadn't returned sometime in the middle of the night, Charmaine in tow, and left a few personal messages on his car courtesy of her house keys.

When Anthony rang the bell, the door swung open almost immediately, and he jumped in surprise. "Saw you coming up the walk, hon." Charmaine said with an exaggeratedly accomodating grin. Once, Charmaine had been a woman of startling beauty, elegant enough in her younger years to turn the heads of men with desire, and women with envy. Now, however, a decade and a half of solid drinking and smoking and other harder vices had left their mark on her, turning her once sculpted cheeks into jowls, her red hair lackluster and dingy, and her skin sallow and unpleasant. Only her eyes remained the same, bright with potential malice and the glitter of cruel, reptillian intelligence.

There had once been a movement to forcibly evict the woman from the town limits five years ago after she had shown up drunk and half naked to the junior highschool dance. The movement had been cut short -- garrotted, really -- after Charmaine had paid a private visit to the mayor and sherriff. Anthony didn't know what had been said, but ever since the woman had been left to her own devices, and the town tried it's best to look the other way whenever she paid them a visit.

"Afternoon, Ms DuChamp." Anthony said cautiously. She was wearing a mottled red velvet tank top and too-tight jeans; behind her, he could see the dim shapes of broken bottles on the floor in the gloom. "How are you doing?"

"That's sweet, Tony. That's real sweet of you to ask." She grinned at him, sharp as a viper. He watched her eyes; were they redder than usual, had she been doing drugs, or just drinking? "I'm doing just fine."

Anthony hesitated, and the silence spun out awkwardly as she studied him. After a moment, he decided to dispense with the pleasantries and plunged ahead. "I don't mean to bother you, but is Ina here? Only, she didn't come home last night . . . "

"Nope." As she spoke, Charmaine fished into her pocket and pulled out a battered cigarette, lighting it with a practiced flick of her wrist from a lighter sharped like an eagle's head. "I asked, but she said she was going over to the kid's place. Waste of time, if you ask me." She inhaled, eyelids fluttering shut, and blew a stream of smoke over both their heads. "A dick's only about when it wants the one thing we've got, but try telling that to kids these days." She winked, her gaze dropping down to the front of his jeans.

A grimace tried to rise on Anthony's face, and he managed to pull it back before it saw it's birth. "She went there, but she . . . well, Bill called it quits. I thought she might've come here."

Raising her eyes, the older woman's nostrils flared, the corners of her mouth turning down. "Huh. Well, she didn't. But it figures. I told her so often enough that she's probably afraid to come here, like I'm gonna say 'I told you so' or something."

Anthony had never been quite certain what to make of his older sister. Perpetually agressive, unhappy, and loud, Ina had effectively siezed control of the household after their mother had left, dropping out of school without a backward glance except to flip the bird over her shoulder. Ina had always reacted badly to any form of authority, so her first act as reigning queen of the house had been to render all rules null and void -- although she had been oddly militant about insisting Anthony continue to attend school. They had never been close, precisely; conversation was often strained due to a wide gap in personalities, and Ina was rarely at home to talk to anyway.

Nevertheless, Anthony felt a brief tug of fear in the pit of his stomach at Charmaine's words. If Ina wasn't here, where was she? As unreliable as she was, Ina had never really been the sort of person to vanish, unheard of for so long. If there was one thing the young woman thrived on, it was making her presence known as loudly as possible.

Eyeing him through a haze of smoke, Charmaine's lips twisted in what might have been intended to be a reassuring smile. "You know Ina." she said flippantly. "If Billy-Boy cut her strings then she's probably off licking her wounds somewhere. She'll come slinking back in a few hours, angry and meaner than ever. The young pups always do."

_Fantastic_, Anthony thought. Out loud, he said, "You're probably right. I just thought I heard her come by last night, and I thought maybe she'd gotten herself in some sort of trouble . . . "

Charmaine shrugged, the movement putting more strain on her shirt. "Hon, Ina _is _some sort of trouble. Haven't you figured that out by now? That's what makes her so much fun." She licked the palm of her hand suddenly and stubbed her cigarette out on it; Anthony winced. "You wanna come in? Maybe wait for her a bit, hang out?"

Despite the bored tone the invitation had been issued in, Anthony found himself recoiling from it. He'd heard things about Charmaine DuChamp, many of them out of the mouth of his own sister after returning from a long night of partying with the woman. He might still have been a young man, but he did have standards, and he didn't like the way Charmaine's gaze often lingered on him whenever she was around, like an oil slick under his skin.

Something of this must have shown on his face, for Charmaine abruptly chuckled without humour. "_Car vous l'auriez, petit garçon_. Whatever you want. If the girl comes by, I'll let her know you're looking." She flicked the remains of her cigarette over his shoulder and into the grass. Anthony turned his head briefly to follow it's descent, and when he turned back, the door had shut soundlessly before he could thank her.

He was tempted to knock on the door again, to apologise for possibly offending her, but he knew not to push his luck. Charmaine's moods were unpredictable, and the last thing he wanted was to wind up retreating ignobly from a screaming attack. Turning, he hurried back down to his car. An unpleasant prickling sensation on the nape of his neck let him know he was still being watched as he climbed in. Somehow, he doubted Charmaine DuChamp had much more to do these days than watch people.

Then again, depending on what you saw, that could be profitable, too.

_She's right, though_. Anthony thought as he turned on the car, as much lulled by the steady purr of the engine as he had been oddly reassured by Charmaine's assessment of his sister. _She'll be back_.

Anthony allowed himself to slump back into the seat as he pulled away from the curb and headed back towards the heart of the town. It was already approaching late afternoon, the white quality of the light of the sky changing subtly to a pale gold and painting the entire landscape with richer colours than earlier in the day. The streets were still alive, but already it seemed the activity was dropping off, one final stretch before the town went back to sleep for the night. Anthony found himself amazed more often lately on how the days flew by without his noticing now that he was out of school. Moreso when he wasn't working. Even with his job at the hardware store to break up the pattern of days, more often than not they poured by like liquid, some recogniseable from others only by the size of the ripples in them.

He knew a lot of people his age and younger who were frustrated by the quality of life in Rhodes. Even in the tourist season, things were often quiet, and Anthony had spent many days listening to the frustrations of his friends who constantly paged through glossy magazines and lusted after the faster lives contained inside. Personally, he didn't see the appeal. Ina called him a settler, and he supposed it was true. Everything he really needed, wanted out of life was right here. Why go elsewhere?

Less than a century old, the town had originally been built as a private resort for a rich couple and their friends before a conflict in land ownership had forced them to open it up to other people. It was beautiful land, of course, and in a beautiful location, and it hadn't been long before other people had bought land or simply snuck in unnoticed to build their own homesteads. Although Anthony's mother had long claimed their small house and it's little patch of land had been a gift from a wealthy friend of the family, he suspected his grandparents had simply siezed the plot and taken up greedy residence. He was attached to the house of his youth, but he also planned to get his own one day, to actually have a piece of paper that laid claim to the ground beneath his feet earned by his own hands.

Swinging onto the road home, Anthony found himself driving past the row of cabins Stanton Saxon rented out. One, he saw, looked occupied, and even as he looked curiously, pausing at a stoplight, the door opened and several people came out. A woman, a man, and two young girls. The woman was pretty enough; city-bred, no doubt, but looking comfortable in a light dress, dark hair arranged artfully around a face that seemed suited to thoughtfull repose. The man, however, would have been at home swinging at axe at a lodge in the hills, a massive fellow with rough hewn features partially obscured by the bristle of a reddish-brown beard. As Anthony watched, the younger of the two girls, clutching tight to her father's hand, noticed him; her features immediately broke into such a smile that she might have seen a relative or close friend, and she waved enthusiastically. Amused, Anthony waved back even as he pulled ahead.

He envied them, a little. He didn't know if his current relationship would work out, but one day he intended to have that, a happy, carefree family, connected like a circle.

He hoped that Ina would want to be a part of it.

"Did you get a hold of Chris?"

Despite the calm tone she used to ask, Barry knew Kathy well enough to know the earlier phone call had upset her. Unlike some other women, Kathy was typically extremely forthwright with her feelings -- most especially anger. Worry, however, was not something she was comfortable in expressing, as though she expected some predator was lurking just outside of the circle of their family, waiting for the first scent of weakness.

She was worried, though. They both were. The message from Chris Redfield had been waiting for them when they'd gotten back from shopping, a note sticking out of the mailbox delivered by the cabin manager after the S.T.A.R.S. marksman had apparently called the main office. Barry cursed himself for not having been there to receive the call, even though he knew Chris would have tried a lot harder to reach them if something was going south.

Truthfully, Barry felt a little guilty about not being off with the others -- Chris, Jill, Rebecca, David -- while they gathered information on Umbrella. Okay, a _lot _guilty. But they'd already made their decision to leave without him; they'd looked uncomfortably at one another when he'd expressed his eagerness to go with them, to finally _do _something. But . . .

"You've got a family, Barry." Rebecca had said, twisting her hands nervously but still unusually firm. "This is just a look around sort of thing."

"You've all got families too." Barry had said, more harshly than he'd intended. Although he knew they were trying to be kind to him, to give him time with his family he might not . . . get later, the exclusion had still stung.

"Yeah. But ours aren't threatening with divorce." Chris had been deliberately blunt, but it had served to push aside Barry's objections. Smash aside, more likely. He'd been telling Chris his worries about his marriage for a while then, ever since the Spencer Estate, and to hear someone say that word he'd been worried was looming inside Kathy's mind was nothing short of devastating.

Still, a niggling doubt remained in his mind, even after he'd given them his blessing and made them swear to keep in close contact. Was that really the reason why they'd decided not to take him?

Or was his betrayal, even if it had been forced, still fresh in their minds?

"No." Barry said now as he drove. "No, I couldn't. I tried the number he'd left, but they were already gone." To the children, who were listening closely in the backseat, and immensely fond of 'Uncle Chris', he said, "Chris is on a vacation of his own."

"He should have come with us." Poly Anne said. "Then he could have fun like we're having. He's not gonna have fun all by himself."

_No, _Barry thought, _no, he certainly isn't going to have any fun at all_.

Just thinking about it, what might be happening over in Europe without his knowing, was making his nerves sing. It was a relief to park the car.

"I still can't believe he lives there." Kathy said, climbing out, the tension easing away from her face to make room for soft amazement.

"I still can't believe he bought our groceries." Barry said, helping out the girls. "It's like something out of a bad romance novel. Maybe I should be jealous. It's classic. Man meets woman, woman loses money, man gallantly offers to pay . . . "

"Invites woman and her husband and two children to dinner?" Kathy snickered. "I'm sorry, I don't believe that one ever made it to the shelves, tawdry as you make it sound. Maybe you should write it down."

Barry laughed. Truthfully, he didn't find the whole situation as odd as Kathy did. She had been all but bursting with it when he'd arrived to pick her up with the girls, comically wide-eyed with disbelief. For his part, Barry had spent much of his life in towns smaller than this one, where the community seemed to think of itself more as a family than anything else. And besides, Kathy did happen to look pretty good; was it really so strange that someone would extend a dinner invitation?

Admittedly, though, Barry would never have suspected that the expensive looking cottage Poly Anne had been so taken by would belong to one of the two old men whom he'd seen bickering over five dollars in the diner. He'd known people who were frugal, but this? With every light on in every window now as they approached the door, Poly Anne and Moira wide-eyed between them, the place looked like a small getaway for royalty, or even another gateway to Narnia. Absently, Barry smoothed the front of the shirt he was wearing. Kathy had wanted him to wear a suit, and the girls, fully supportive of being dressed like little princesses for "a real dinner", had joined the battle. In the end, however, Barry had won out; he had always suspected he looked more than a little ridiculous in a suit, like a bear wearing a top hat at the circus.

Kathy had barely pressed the doorbell when the door was pulled open. The man on the other side looked shocked to find them there, twisting around to look behind him as though he half expected to find someone sneaking up behind him as well. He was fairly young, tall and thin, with straggly black hair and a rumpled appearance, but shadows under his eyes made him look older. With a briefcase in one hand and a faded black jacket on askew, it was clear he was on his way out. "Uh, may I . . . help you?"

Kathy looked off-balance for only a moment before sliding a smile into place. Barry had always admired her in social situations; he usually got along well with people, but rarely saw the point in dressing himself up for any occasion. "Hello. I'm Kathy Bristow, and this is my husband Barry, and my children Moira, and Poly Anne." Barry saw the briefest of flickers in her eyes when she used the false last name they had agreed upon several days before. "We were invited to dinner by Mister Council Riddick?"

From the expression on the young man's face, you might have thought Kathy had just told him she intended to come in and dance naked atop the dinner table while Barry set fire to the valuables. "Dinner? By . . . who? You said . . . " He paused, licking his lips nervously. He appeared to notice the girls for the first time and jumped slightly, his free hand flying to tug anxiously at the ugly brown tie he wore. "Oh, I'm not so sure . . . "

"Edward, you self-imposed shut-in, let them in!"

This time, the young man wasn't the only one to jump as the voice trumpted from inside the house. The door was wrenched open wider, and one of the old men from the diner jostled him aside. "Bunch over. Bunch. Over!" he snapped, sounding for all the world like a parrot having it's feathers plucked out. "Were you raised inna barn? That what you do to guests? Edward!"

Reddening, Edward jerked his head stiffly from side to side. "I didn't . . . I didn't know you were expecting anyone. I thought maybe they were solicitors."

Looking blank, Moira said, "I'm not. I'm eight."

Ignoring the younger man -- his son? -- the old fellow focused on Moira and smiled, bending forward with a slight wheeze. "Are you? I woulda thought you were at least eleventy-teen."

Looking embarassed but pleased, the girl shuffled slightly and dipped her head, smiling. "Nossir. I'm Moira, and I'm just eight."

"But a very smart eight." Barry said, stepping forward and extending one hand. "Nice to meet you."

The old man had a surprisingly powerful grip. "Council Riddick. Call me Council." He looked down at the kids again. "You young ladies can call me The Count, if you want, like everyone else." And he bared imaginary fangs and white dentures. The girls giggled, Poly Anne looking awed; she'd always been a fan of the Count on Sesame Street. Abruptly, Council seemed to remember Edward standing nervously off to one side, and he jerked his head in the younger man's direction. "And this is my nephew, Edward."

Unlike his uncle, Edward Riddick had a loose, shakey grip, and he broke the handshake almost immediately after the most perfunctory of touches. It seemed to be taking all his willpower not to wipe his hand on his pants aftwerwards. "Nice to . . . yeah. I mean, yes. Well. I should get going." Without another word, he brushed past them down the steps, taking great pains not to come into contact with Kathy, and walked briskly away. Barry watched him go; the man walked like he had a steel rod strapped to his back . . . or one up his ass.

"Don't mind the boy." Council was saying. "Kid'd run from a fallin' leaf. But I bet you guys are hungry."

"I hope you didn't go to any trouble." Kathy said as he lead them down a low-ceilinged hall furnished in comforting earthen tones and unobtrusive but elegant gas-look electric lamps.

"Nah. No trouble at all."

They turned the corner, and suddenly Barry found himself wishing he'd bothered to dress up after all, bear or no.

The dining room -- did people really have _dining _rooms anymore? -- was larger than he'd expected, seeing the outside of the building. The far end was dominated by a massive fireplace that looked to have been hewn from real white marble over which a large portrait hung, a small fire already burning behind a grate worked to resemble an ornate iron R. The walls were enormous windows, ceiling to floor, partially obscured by red velvet curtains that looked thick enough to jump off the roof of a building onto if folded up. There was a chandelier, but it was an amazing thing, a spiderweb thin network of expertly worked golden metal -- surely not _real _gold -- that criss-crossed and interlaced overhead like thread dropped by the hand of God, supporting dozens of tiny glass bulbs that glowed with a surprisingly comforting light given their ostentatious setting. And then there was the table; an enormous round beast of a thing, groaning under the weight of a roast beef that would have fed Barry's entire family on leftovers for almost a week, dishes piled high with steaming corn on the cob, dark gravy, mashed potatoes, and more.

"Well," said Council, ignoring their stunned expressions, "let's eat."

The girls whooped and clapped in delight.

"Who's that?"

Barry could hardly move. His limbs felt weighted down with food, every bit of it good enough to grace the tables of any four-star restaurant. Despite their surroundings, dinner had been casual, and in no time Barry had found himself relaxed and chatting with Council Riddick even as between the two of them they managed to make a siezeable chunk into the roast, while Moira and Poly Anne had spent the first fifteen minutes entranced by first the room, then the sheer amount of food presented before them. Barry suspected he might have to quell a few stomach-ache induced nightmares tonight, but he suspected the girls would think it worth it.

Now, however, Moira was twisted around in her chair, pointing. Curious, Barry looked, and found her indicating the portrait above the fireplace. For the first time, he really looked at it. The artist had definitely had some skill; no DaVinci or Fabri, certainly, but enough to devote loving detail to the subject, a young woman. Surprisingly, given the mood of the portrait, she was dressed in a simple cranberry red sweater and razor-straight black slacks. She was standing in front of a bookcase, holding a slender volume in her hands, and looking back over her shoulder. Her skin was like deep chocolate, and her face was round and pleasing, the sort of face you immediately felt you could tell your problems to, framed by poker-straight carmel coloured hair. The artist had clearly devoted a great deal of time to the eyes, infusing them with a warmth, kindness, and courage, and adding a remarkable amount of detail to the odd green-blue colour of them.

"That," said Council, leaning back in his chair with a grunt, "is Fisseha." He pronounced the name awkwardly, looking embarassed as he did so. "Never could get that right."

"She's very pretty." Kathy said, stacking plates in an attempt to clean the table. Council swatted at her hands when she tried to take his, and she sat back down sheepishly.

"You're guests. Don't be stupid." Despite the words, there was no harm in them, and he looked more interested in the painting than anything else. "But she was a good looking one, wasn't she?"

"Sure is. I like mine though." Barry said graciously, and Kathy gave him a wry, indulgent smile.

Looking amused, Council said, "We all think that about our own, I guess, and when we do, it's always true."

"Is she your girlfriend?" Moira asked, and Barry was surprised by her chatty behaviour. Usually, Moira was almost painfully shy around new people, but all throughout dinner she had kept Council's mouth moving when it wasn't chewing answering her questions about everything from his house ("A place to hang my hat, that's all") and Edward ("Boy's got his head stuck right down in the sand.").

"Something like that." Council replied, and in the words if not the face, Barry read a stamp of loss that made him uncomfortable. He liked the old man, sure, would like to get to know him better, but he didn't feel comfortable prying into his private life after they'd just eaten his food. He opened his mouth to distract Moira before she could continue her questioning, but didn't get the chance to.

That was when the sirens began.

The room was suddenly awash with alternating red and blue, and for a moment Barry thought inanely, _This isn't really his house. The real owners are here to take it back now_.

Kathy, however, was already at the windows, the girls clustering tight to her sides. "Something's happening across the street." she said in a voice tight with alarm.

Frowning, Barry came over to stand behind her. It was later in the evening now, and the night was lit up with the flashing lights from two police cruisers parked across the street in front of a two-story house with darkened windows. They didn't seem to have gone in yet, however; Barry could see the shapes of the officers standing on the walk, gesturing angrily to one another.

"It was nice while it lasted." Council said from behind them, and it was then that Barry realised the man hadn't even bothered to get out of his seat. With an air of dismissal to the noise outside, he turned back to the roast and began cutting another slice.


	6. First Interlude

Resident Evil - Voracious

FIRST INTERMISSION

Author's Note: Regarding the mention of Trent in here, I'm assuming you've all read at least one of the books. I will tell you flat outright that Trent himself will not make an appearance in this story. I do, however, have respect for S.D. Perry's novelisation attempts, and so I've made a few attempts to tie the books AND the games in.

Eyeing herself critically in front of the mirror, Jill Valentine twisted her head from side to side, the eyeliner still held in one hand. She thought it might be a sufficient enough transformation to allow her to go out without attracting undue attention; she had applied the eyeliner with a deliberately heavy hand, sweeping it up subtly at the corner to imply a different shape than her eyes normally held, been severe in the pale blush to create the illusion of sharply angled cheekbones. Just last night she had sat patiently on a chair in the middle of the small hotel room while Rebecca Chambers had cut her hair, changing it into a delicate pixie-cut. For Jill, who rarely applied makeup beyond a few subtle basics, it felt uncomfortable if not downright bizarre to have layers of the stuff all over her face. Still, it was worth it for how different she looked . . . even if it wasn't exactly a positive change from her point of view.

"I look like a kid who broke into her mother's makeup box." she complained aloud.

Sitting up against the headboard of her bed with a book propped open on her knees and a handgun lying on the pillow beside her, Rebecca looked over. The Bravo -- no, you couldn't really call her that anymore, could you? _Rebecca _herself had gone through a makeover of her own, although a less drastic one; her hair had been dyed a dark strawberry blonde and allowed to grow somewhat shaggy, a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses propped up on her forehead. "No, you don't."

"Really?"

"You look like a deranged lolita." the young woman assured her, and grinned.

"Well, thank you for that." Jill tried for an expression of hurt, but found herself chuckling anyway.

It felt good to laugh, even as little as that. Ever since the Spencer Estate, Jill had acquired a new appreciation for comedy, and found herself filling her spare time with cheap, harmless fluff novels and silly comedy movies. Anything to drive back the shade of depression that kept trying to creep over her whenever she stopped moving long enough to listen to her thoughts. Chris and David had been indulgent for the most part, but when Jill had mentioned going out to see an amateur stand-up night at a comedy club she'd noticed as they'd driven into the city, both men had become mysteriously "exhausted". Only Rebecca had been willing to join her. Ah well. Let them cope in their own way.

Even if, judging from the dark circles Jill had seen around David's eyes just this morning, their nightmares were just as bad as hers.

It was never the same one in Jill's case. Her imagination was far too active to allow her a single repetitive dream. When she finally managed to fall asleep each night, her dreams, when her sleep wasn't blissfully absent of them, were full of long, dark corridors, distant cries for help, shadows glimpsed just out of the corner of her eye, and cold, dead hands grasping at her throat.

If she was lucky.

Other times, she found herself dreaming of fleeing through darkened streets from a towering monolith neither dead nor truly alive, made by man to kill man, stomping the remains of children underfoot. And then there were the explosions, bright births of red and orange and yellow flowers behind her eyes, silencing all that screaming and pain in an instant, which was somehow even more horrible than the cries themselves.

She'd never mentioned these to the others, therapeutic as it might have been to discuss them with someone else. The last thing she needed was to feel Chris's eyes on her dark with worry, for David to think she was losing it, and for Rebecca to feel less than safe with her. Besides, she was sure they had their own demons to deal with.

Jill retrieved a faded brown leather jacket from off of the other bed in the room and shrugged into it, making sure it lay naturally over the pistol she carried in a pancake holster at her side. In a pinch, she could shoot through the jacket itself if she didn't have time to fully draw, but she would have hated to; the jacket had belonged to her father. "Ready?"

Slamming her book shut, Rebecca eeled off the bed. At the door, Jill paused once to sweep the room with her gaze and make sure she'd locked all the windows, and that nothing would look odd if one of the cleaning women happened by in their absence; apart from the weapons she and Rebecca carried, there was a suitcase, locked, in the back of the narrow closet that held a few other choice pieces under a false cover of folded shirts and feminine hygeine products. It wasn't much of a room in any case; dingy paisley patterned wallpaper, and barely enough room to turn around between the dresser, a battered narrow desk, and the two sagging beds. At least it was clean, which was more than she could say for some of the other places they'd been forced to hide out in. It hadn't been easy to stay under Umbrella's radar, but she thought they'd managed it for the time being.

In the hallway, Jill paused to knock on the door opposite the room she shared with Rebecca. She heard quiet footsteps approach the door, a pause while she was scruitinised through the peephole, and then the sound of a lock being turned. The door swung open and Chris Redfield smiled wearily at her. "Hey. Heading out? You look great."

"Really? Because you look like hell."

He laughed, and she laughed with him, but it was basically true. Chris was a good looking guy -- a fact that she'd maybe begun to pay too much attention to -- but these past few months had stamped their mark on him. There were dark bags under his eyes, his hair longer than it had ever been and untidy. As they'd done most of their work at night, his skin had acquired a slightly unhealthy pale tint to it. Jill would have liked to think that this was part of Chris's own personal disguise, but she knew better. He was worried.

And mad as hell at Umbrella.

Jill leaned by him into the room. "Hi, David. Just wanted to let you guys know we're leaving."

Seated on the opposite side of the room, his back to them at the desk that was identical to the one in Jill's own room, David Trapp didn't look around at the sound of her voice. His frame was illuminated in the steady glow of the laptop computer set up in front of him, giving him almost a messiac appearance. His long hands sped across the keys, typing in some command, before the screen went black and he twisted around in the chair to face her. Even as irritated as she was with his dismissive behaviour, Jill felt a twinge of embarassment as she always did whenever he looked at her. She couldn't help it. David looked like a lot of the professors she had known back in high school, somehow too refined, too . . . sculpted to really look as though he belonged as part of their little vigilante troupe. It didn't help that to change his appearance he'd grown a small, immaculately trimmed goatee, dyed his hair a somehow scholarly salt-and-pepper colour. He looked at her, and Jill felt herself straightening under his gaze.

David smiled wanly. "I suppose you still have amateur comedy in mind."

"Well . . . yes. I wasn't going to try any of my own though."

"I might." Rebecca said, surprising them all. "What?" she asked, brows rising. Ever since they had been drawn closer together, Rebecca seemed to be trying to come into herself more, making more of an effort to seperate herself from the shy, murmuring girl whose innocence had been cast aside like a flimsy curtain after the Spencer Estate.

"I didn't know biochemists had senses of humour." Chris said. "What, are you going to get up there and go, 'What's the difference between a subatomic pathogen and a neutral atomic mass? The latter has only _four functioning diodes_!'" He feigned uproarious laughter and slapped his knee.

Rebecca regarded him dryly. "Hardly any of what you just said made sense. And what did, you got _wrong_."

Slipping between the two of them, Jill sat on the edge of the bed next to David. "Rooting out bad guys or buying bad pottery off of Ebay?" she asked, gesturing at the computer screen. Smiling slightly, David swivelled the computer towards her with one hand.

The now familiar image of the message board they'd been using to keep tabs on one another filled the screen. It wasn't one of their own making; that would have been too obvious. Instead, they'd chosen a preexisting message board, one fairly active one where teens across the US posted to ask about everything from sex to trouble at home. David had been reading a message, posted just that afternoon, from Claire -- or, as she'd chosen to be her handle, LivelyGrrl19. (Jill had to grin whenever she saw the slight cringe that crossed David's features whenever he had to type in something like that.)

_Hey everybody. Just thought I'd let you know that I haven't heard from Cybill lately. I don't think there's any need to go knocking on her door just yet. I'll keep an eye on her, and hopefully her brother will let us know if she's in any real trouble. :)_

Simple and unobtrusive, unlike the elaborate, headache-inducing plans they'd originally come up with before Claire had suggested it. Cybill referred to Umbrella, after the deranged woman with multiple personalities in the old movie. According to Claire, there was nothing new to report on her end, but she was keeping an eye out from Cybill's brother.

Namely, Trent.

Truth be told, none of them had heard from the man in quite some time. Certainly they had no way to contact him. For her part, Jill was a little relieved. Even if thus far Trent had been helpful to them, there was no guarantee it would continue. It was like a carrot being dangled in front of their noses; desperate for a lead, for a friendly face, they would follow it because they had no choice, at least until they got wind of something happening. But when next they followed Trent, who was to say they wouldn't wind up staring eternity in the eye down the barrel of a gun?

Jill felt a brief pang of envy for Barry, so comfortable and surrounded by his family now.

"How are you?" David asked quietly, as Chris and Rebecca continued to pick on one another affectionately.

"Tired." Jill replied honestly, looking him straight in the eyes. "Nervous."

He nodded. "I know what you mean. I almost wish something would happen. Do you suppose that's perverse?"

Jill had to smile. "No. I want it over with too." _No matter what we have to climb over to get there_, she added mentally.

By the door, Rebecca giggled and shoved Chris at something he'd said, grinning over at Jill. "Hey, are we going or what?"

"Sure you don't want to come?" Jill asked David.

He shook his head. "We agreed. Two people stay together at all times, and someone has to monitor the site."

"Yeah. And besides, _Pretty in Pink _is on hotel cable tonight. I can't miss that." Chris affected an expression of such great torment that Jill laughed, partly from relief. However he looked, he seemed to be holding up well, and it was important to her that he did.

_Maybe as important as Chris is becoming . . . ?_

Smiling, Jill stood up, ignoring the thought. Chris was a friend, sure, but this wasn't some slumber party. "You'll get your turn tomorrow night." she said, and the sarcasm faded from his own smile when his eyes met hers.

When Jill and Rebecca were out on the street, Jill glanced up at what she knew was Chris and David's hotel room window. The curtain twitched slightly and she raised a hand in salute. They were getting by, she thought. They all were.

Still, part of her was soundly in David's court. She wished something would _happen_.

At least Barry was having fun.


	7. Five

Resident Evil - Voracious - Chapter Five

The night was uldulating with spears of red and blue as Barry jogged across the street, Kathy's demanding voice at his back from where she stood on the steps of Council Riddick's home. He wasn't ignoring her, exactly, but years of civil service had stamped a claim on his mind, and the scent of trouble rose like a hand in his mind, smashing aside all else, and only the desire to help, to protect, remained. It wasn't until he actually reached one of the police cars that he realised he was effectively useless without a badge, and he pulled up short.

One of the officers had already vanished inside. While curious faces peered from nearby windows and doorways, only a few people had actually gathered around the sidewalk. Their faces were strained and tired in the light, some of them wearing rumpled clothes that had obviously been pulled on in a hurry, and they sounded more annoyed than worried as they questioned the remaining officer, who abandoned them when he saw Barry. "Hey. _Hey_. Move on, okay? Everything's under control."

"What's going on here? Is everything allright?" Barry frowned, backing up a few paces.

"I said it was under control, didn't I?" the man replied. He sounded irritable and tired, but he didn't look confrontational. He was young, probably fresh out of a training program, and the top of his head barely reached Barry's shoulder. "Probably just a false alarm."

"_Probably_ just a false alarm?" A tall, rail thin woman with hastily applied red lipstick pushed her way forward. She was dressed in a pair of ridiculously immaculate jogging shorts underneath an oversized t-shirt reading 'Number One Mom'. Everything, from the set of her hips to the tilt of her head, spoke of agression. "I'm paying your salary and for every time you take a coffee break, and you come back at me with _probably just a false alarm _after you wake my daughter up? She has school tomorrow! I have to _work _tomorrow!"

"Ma'am, I didn't call this in, okay? Nor was I the one who made the disturbance." He gave Barry a harassed look. The brass nametag affixed to the front of his dun coloured uniform read 'Barniman'. "Everything is fine."

"Then you shouldn't be using your sirens, _or _those godawful lights."

"What happened, exactly?" Barry asked, then added, somewhat inanely, "I was in the military," as though it justified his involvement.

Barniman sighed heavily, scratching at a patch of razor-irritated skin on his shaven jawline. "It's like I said, sir. Someone called in a loud noise and requested it be looked into. We'll be out of here in a few minutes, so you can all _go home_." he added, raising his voice, although by now the woman had retreated to the other bystanders and was conversing with them in loud, angry tones.

Across the street, Kathy was calling for him to come back. There was a note of anger in her voice now, and Barry knew it would be best to go back and diffuse the situation before the night was completely ruined with an argument about 'playing the hero'. Instead, however, Barry pressed, "What disturbance?"

Barniman turned back to him, brow creasing, but whatever he was about to say, wether admonishing or enlightening, was forgotten in the chaos that broke loose.

A horrifying scream split the air like a carving knife, seeming to drive right into Barry's stomach, and he heard the young officer gasp loudly. The sound of shattering glass that followed it was even louder, like a bright flast of light in Barry's mind, and both he and the cop spun around in time to see the dark form hurtling out of the upstairs window of the darkened house. It hit the lawn with a sickening crunch on the back of it's neck, abruptly ending the still winding scream, toppling head over heels to lie sprawled on the sidewalk.

The woman who may or may not have been in fact the world's greatest mother shrieked so loudly Barry's ears popped, and the other men and women scattered like birds frightened by a gunshot.

The lights from the cars illuminated the still body of another police officer, body contorted unnaturally, eyes wide but already beginning to glaze over. Barry saw with a sickening lurch of reality that this one, too, was young, and most definitely dead, the neck bulging with shattered bones like a clenched fist. The young man's palms lay facing upwards, and Barry saw they were smeared with brilliant crimson dulled by red and blue lights.

"Oh . . . oh . . . oh! . . . _Shiiiiiii-iiiiiit_!" Barniman cried, face bleached of colour, and he broke for his cruiser, arms and legs flailing, snatching at the shortwave radio inside. "Linda! Linda, this is Barniman, get me, get me the Sherriff, get me backup -- "

But Barry was no longer listening. Rising on the night air from the darkened house was the thin, high, terrified cry of a child.

He ran for the front door, his heart suddenly doing double time, and slammed into it with his shoulder even though it was already partially ajar. He skidded to a stop, almost toppling on a throw rug on a polished wooden floor, and the door rebounded off the wall behind him, slamming shut with a finalistic sound. He opened his mouth to call out -- but didn't.

Something was wrong, even beyond the death of the policeman and the possible presence of a killer if whoever it was hadn't already left by a back door. He was standing in a living room, only slightly brightened by the police cruiser's lights as they passed over the small opening between the drawn curtains over a massive picture window. He could just make out the dim shape of a couch and a coffee table, topped by tiny forms that were probably assorted knick-knacks, and the shadowy blotches of people in picture frames surveyed him from the walls. The air had a heavy quality as though it were pregnant with expectation, and to Barry it seemed too thick to breathe, like forcing his lungs to convert oxygen from molasses.

_Now what, hero?_

He didn't know.

But there was a still shape draped over the back of the couch that was too large to be anything but a human being.

Barry was physically painfully aware of how unarmed he was. He carried a small pocketknife with him, and he dug it out now, flipping it open and trying to ignore how pitifully small the blade seemed, intended for cleaning fish or working out splinters rather than self defense. Even though the person was most likely dead -- _Stop thinking like that! _-- he crept towards it anyway, surprisingly stealthy for a man who was usually about as subtle as a drunk bull in a fine china shop.

It was cold in the house, and the yawning shapes of dark doorways made it seem even colder, but sweat was still stippling the back of his neck with sinister kisses. He was far from a cowardly man, but he still found his hand trembling slightly as it reached out towards the slumped form.

His hand touched a smooth, still-warm bald head, a few coarse strands of hair sliding under his palm. "Hey." Barry whispered, wetting his lips before he could bring himself to raise his voice. "Hey." He felt downwards towards the neck, felt the collar of a terrycloth robe against his fingers as he felt for a pulse; the skin on the neck itself was thick and slack, the flesh of a man who had probably just begun to settle into retirement. Even though Barry could feel no flutter under that skin, he felt lower down the back, trying to shack the man to consciousness, telling himself he wasn't a field medic, so what did he know about pulses? "Hey -- "

His hand sank into something spongey and wet.

With a startled grunt of disgust and fear, Barry jerked his hand backwards, and the body -- for there was nothing in it now to make it ever a person again, slithered down to the floor with a heavy sigh of cloth, jarred by his movement. Barry wiped his hand on his pants furiously, backing away. Although he was no stranger to death, accepted it, there was still something horrible about it, even more so when you were alone in a dark room with it.

Barry swallowed heavily and looked around. Against one wall, he could make out the glitter of what looked to be smashed glass or crystal, as though someone had thrown it at something -- the disturbance mentioned? Moving quietly again, but faster now, Barry moved towards one doorway, wincing inwardly at even the softest rasp of his shoes on the floor. He carried the pocketknife down low at his side, ready to be driven upwards in a fatal strike if need be.

_Where the hell is backup_? he wondered grimly. The hell with some small town police force; he wanted Chris Redfield at his back, or Jill Valentine, or David or Rebecca or anyone else. Anyone he could _trust_, anyway.

Peering around a corner, Barry made out the shadows of what he thought was a kitchen. Here, the light was better, the moon spilling in through several windows that overlooked a neatly maintained backyard. It was a small room, only large enough for the necessities, a thin staircase leading upwards against the far wall and one small table with two chairs; on the table was a tupperware container with what looked like a cake inside, and a knife gleamed off the tiled floor.

There was another figure slumped at the foot of the stairs, but there would be no need to check the pulse on this one. A woman, one old enough to be Barry's own mother, in a plaid housedress, the crown of her white hair darkened with gore, her face mercifully turned way; her head had been twisted almost all the way around. Above her, there was a dark starburst of blood on the wall where her head had struck, unidentifiable bits strewn outwards from it in all directions.

Barry felt sick, his stomach fluttering with fear and nausea, but his head pounding with anger. Who the hell would break into a house and kill a couple of harmless old people? There was a framed photograph on the wall next to his head, and the sight of the faces smiling from it only made him angrier.

He heard something upstairs and froze.

It might have been a footstep. Probably was. But the quality of it was strange. It was stealthy, so quiet he'd almost missed it, but loud enough to be deliberate, like someone trying to get his attention. Barry had heard of killers who enjoyed toying with their victims, getting off on the scent of fear in the air and the terror of their victims. Had these people experienced that? Had they spun about in fear before the game had finally been ended?

Another sound.

A child's sob, from upstairs.

Without thinking, Barry broke for the staircase, leaping over the body crumpled at the bottom with surprising agility. The part of him that was still a professional screamed at him that he was going at this all wrong, that charging in was a good way to get himself and the kid killed, but all he could think was, _God, what if that was my baby_? Ever since the threat that Albert Wesker had made at the Spencer Estate, smiling like a razor blade while he said he'd have Kathy and the girls killed if Barry didn't help him, Barry had been acutely attuned to the safety of his children. Now, the threat to another child tore up something primal and paternal in him.

At the top of the stairs, Barry looked around wildly in time to see a door slam shut at the end of the hallway. Here, the shadows seemed thicker somehow, as though the walls and the floor had been painted black, leeching any light. It was, he thought distantly, like standing in the throat of some great beast, about to be swallowed. He hurried towards the door, head and heart throbbing in time, and grasped the handle.

The room was the one the policeman had made his unfortunate exit from; a sewing room, mannequins against the wall draped with fabric, and the floor littered with glass.

Crouched against the opposite wall, his eyes huge with fear, was a small boy.

The kid looked to be about five, head shaved, dressed in white pajamas. His limbs were thin and delicate looking, and he thrust himself back against the wall as though he could force himself through it, crying out with fear at the sight of Barry. The soles of his bare feet were bloody.

Relief coursed through Barry, making his legs weak. The room was empty, except for the kid. And, even more importantly, he looked to be mostly unhurt.

The boy's eyes were a shocking, vivid blue, and they swam with unshed tears. He lashed out in Barry's direction with one hand, feeling frantically along the wall with the other, trying to find some means of escape. Barry realised how intimidating he must look, and he hastily tossed the knife aside. "It's okay." he said, trying to make his voice sound non-threatening and soothing from it's usual deep rumble. He felt suddenly clumsy. "You're gonna be okay now. I'm here to help you -- "

The kid ran straight for him, screaming.

Startled by the sudden movement, Barry jumped back a step, and the boy shoved him aside as he fled into the hall, still yowling like a banshee. "Hey -- !"

Something detached itself from the wall as the kid reached the stairs.

It looked like a spill of ink, sinuous and flowing, rising up until it crested the ceiling, and Barry heard a great hiss of air, like a breath taken after being underwater for a long time, and the air suddenly felt colder, as though he were standing in a meat locker.

_not seeing this --_

Barry felt as though he were pinned against the wall by the weight of a gaze, and though he could make out no head, the shadow seemed to be looking in his direction. The boy had frozen on the stairs, staring back with an expression of unutterable terror. Then he began to run.

And the shadow broke after him.

"No!" Barry bellowed, not understanding what was going on, only knowing that the boy was in danger. It took all of his effort to push away from the wall --

and something launched itself at him from the other end of the hallway.

He couldn't see what it was in the dark, but it felt like a sledgehammer hitting his chest as it barrelled into him. He was thrown backwards, literally taken off his feet by the force of it, and when he hit the floor the breath left his body in a painful rush and heard a crunching sound from within himself that terrified him. For an instant, a tremendous weight pressed down on him, something dark and deadly coiled on his chest. He heard a leonine growl, and then the thing was gone, leaping off him as though it weighed no more than a feather. Immediately, Barry tried to scramble to his feet, still thinking of the boy fleeing from the shadowed thing down below, but a screaming pain in his side drove him back to his knees with a gasp, arms wrapped around himself. Something felt loose inside his body.

_Broken rib? _he thought, reeling.

Footsteps were pounding up the stairs, and then Barry was suddenly blinking in a bright wash of light. It took a moment for him to realise he was looking into a flashlight, and he saw the glint of a gun behind it. Pointed at him.

"_Don't fucking move_!" a shrill male voice screamed, taught with fear. "Police!"

_I was just having dinner fifteen minutes ago_. Barry thought dimly. He tried to stand again, and the pain wrapped around his mind like an iron vice. "The kid." he managed to say before he passed out, and then the only shadows were the ones behind his eyes.


End file.
